The field of anthropology has contributed much to documenting the condition of homelessness, with the goals of easing the lives of those who are homeless, and pointing to ways of preventing and eradicating homelessness. Anthropology’s theories, methodologies, and modes of analysis make it especially suited to unearthing the subtleties of homelessness. As one of the most visible indicators of poverty, homelessness confronts communities with their inability to offer everyone the most basic conditions for a healthy and productive life.
Definitions and Theories of Homelessness
A widely used conceptualization of homelessness developed by Peter Rossi (Rossi, Wright, Fisher, & Willis, 1987) distinguishes between the literally homeless (persons who obviously have no access to a conventional dwelling and who would be considered homeless by any conceivable definition of the term) and the precariously or marginally housed(persons with tenuous or very temporary claims to a more or less...
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Glasser, I., Bridgman, R. (2004). Homelessness. In: Ember, C.R., Ember, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29905-X_19
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